As Joni continued to climb, Helena kept her gaze on the shape in her pocket. It was too large, too solid, to be tissues.

  ‘Seriously,’ Helena called again, trying to keep pace. ‘What is in your pocket?’

  Joni pretended not to hear.

  Helena had to scramble to reach her side, panting hard. She put a hand on Joni’s arm.

  Joni span around, eyes narrowed. ‘What?’

  Helena snatched a breath. ‘What have you got in there?’

  Joni shook her off and tried to rejoin the trail.

  Helena followed, fury making her fast. Then, just as suddenly, she stopped. She blinked, staring at the back of Joni as she realised. ‘Oh God! You didn’t?’

  Ahead of her, Joni hesitated.

  Maggie and Liz, catching up, asked, ‘What’s going on?’

  Slowly, Joni turned and faced her friends. Her tanned skin had blanched.

  Helena glared at her. ‘You stole the fucking coke!’

  Joni’s expression was strange, eyes hard, but glistening. ‘The bag was already ripped. What were they gonna do with it?’

  ‘You went back for it?’ Liz asked, aghast.

  ‘So?’

  Joni had been the last to leave the cave. She must have grabbed the bag and stuffed it in her jacket pocket.

  ‘Why would you take it?’ Liz asked. Her voice came out small, bewildered.

  She shrugged. ‘If our energy flags, it’ll help us get through.’

  Helena baulked. ‘You want us to snort cocaine halfway up a bloody mountain? Are you insane? We’re not at a music festival! We’re on a remote mountain face! If we don’t keep our shit together, don’t make it off the mountain, we will die out here!’

  Maggie’s voice was thin. ‘You’ve put us all in danger!’

  Joni was glaring at them like a cornered animal. When she was in the wrong, Joni fought.

  ‘I’ve put us in danger? It wasn’t my idea to peg our tents at the bottom of the mountain—’

  Maggie looked mortified. ‘I’m sorry. I never thought—’

  ‘—And it wasn’t my idea to hike out into the wilderness despite the storm warnings!’

  It was Liz’s turn to flush.

  ‘If you’re so worried about the cocaine,’ Joni said, yanking the package free of her pocket and tossing it on a rock between them, ‘then we ditch it.’

  Helena stared at the package. Joni had managed to patch the split using a section of tape from the seal of the bag. ‘We can’t get rid of it! Someone is coming to collect the drugs – and when they find a bag is missing, they’re not going to be happy.’ She shook her head. ‘You never think! That’s your problem, Joni!’

  ‘That’s my problem?’ Joni retorted, folding her arms.

  ‘One of them.’

  ‘When did you become so uptight?’ Joni challenged. ‘You used to be the first to step forward for a line.’

  ‘Yeah. In a club. On a big weekend. In my twenties. Not during a hiking trip! I’m not in Norway to get high – I came out here to spend time with my friends and to spread my mother’s ashes.’ She felt the sharp ache of loss, thinking again of the ashes lost beneath thousands of tonnes of earth. Irretrievable. She looked at Joni, eyes narrowing. ‘Not that you would give a shit about that.’

  Joni blinked at the quicksilver switch of the argument. ‘What does that mean?’

  Maggie lifted her palms. ‘Let’s not—’

  ‘You know exactly what it means!’ Helena snapped. ‘You weren’t there when Mum was dying. You weren’t there at her funeral. And you haven’t been there since.’

  Joni looked like she’d been slapped. She stood very still, just the shallow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

  ‘Do you know what song Mum requested to open the funeral service?’

  Joni swallowed.

  ‘One of yours. “Rainbows”. Mum wrote down her final wishes: “Rainbows” sung by Joni. Then, in brackets afterwards, she put, Or on CD if Joni can’t be there.’ Helena sucked in a breath. ‘Broke my heart seeing that, because even Mum knew you wouldn’t show up.’

  Joni was blinking rapidly. ‘I couldn’t be there. I was on tour. I had a gig.’

  ‘I checked your schedule,’ Helena said, gaze still pinned to her. ‘There was no gig.’

  45

  JONI

  Shame infused Joni’s skin. Helena was right: there had been no gig.

  ‘I checked the tour dates,’ Helena was saying, lips barely moving. ‘You were in Madrid the night before the funeral, then your next gig was two days later in Prague. You could have flown back. There was time.’ Her voice wavered as she asked, ‘What were you doing that was more important than saying goodbye to my mother?’

  Joni felt the collective gaze of her friends. She swallowed repeatedly, unsure how to explain.

  When Helena had messaged her about the funeral, asking if she’d play, Joni was mid-tour. She knew it would be gruelling to fly there and back in forty-eight hours. Her schedule was so jammed – twenty-seven gigs in thirty-three days – that she needed that rare window to decompress.

  Touring was impossible to explain. It was this crazy, messed-up, distorted reality. The drugs and alcohol. The haze of jetlag. The brutal insomnia. The adrenalin that never left her body or let her sleep. The screaming fans. The press following her every move. The cameras shoved in her face.

  It was arriving at a different arena night after night, knowing you had nothing left to give. Looking through the wings at a sea of faces, fans screaming your name, expecting Joni Gold. Only it’s not you. It’s someone else pasting on a smile, stepping out into those dazzling lights, arms thrown wide – Hello Brooklyn! Hello Sydney! Hello Tokyo! – when all you want is to curl up tight, to stay in the dark, because that’s where you belong. But you can’t. You must pump out this energy, fill a whole stadium with it, and it’s got to come from somewhere. But you don’t have any left. You’re a shell. An empty, broken shell! So, you get it on loan any way you can – caffeine, cocaine, anti-depressants, champagne, vodka, nicotine, ketamine – whatever you can get.

  The idea of flying home, standing in a small, respectable church in the village where she’d grown up, seeing all those people who had known her, championed her, believed in her. She just … she couldn’t do it.

  She hadn’t flown back and seen Helena’s mother when she was sick. And now she was dead. She didn’t feel worthy of turning up at the funeral, singing a song to the whole church and being praised for it. So she didn’t fly home. She sat in a hotel room on her own and got blasted out of her skull.

  ‘I … I didn’t have it in me …’ Joni tried. ‘I was in a bad place. I didn’t want that to be how I sent off your mum.’

  ‘So you didn’t send her off at all,’ Helena said, eyes glistening with tears.

  ‘I sent flowers—’

  ‘A big, ostentatious bunch that your manager probably arranged. I wanted you there. Mum wanted you there. You didn’t even call me in the weeks that followed. You just carried on living your big, beautiful life and abandoned me.’ Helena’s voice tripped over those last two words.

  Tears stung Joni’s eyes. Her throat felt like it was closing. The air on the mountain felt too thin, hard to breathe. Maggie and Liz were hanging back, eyes wide. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, eventually. ‘I didn’t know that’s how it felt. I cared about your mum—’

  Helena shook her head. ‘You only care about yourself.’

  ‘Helena …’ Liz said, quietly.

  ‘You don’t get to jump in. Defend her,’ Helena barked.

  ‘I wasn’t going—’

  ‘Everyone fawns around Joni. Grateful for her scraps of attention. You do it, too, Maggie. She bowls into your wedding, all jet-set super stardom, does her thing on the mic and everyone thinks she’s a hero. Then you don’t see her again. Not when you go through the divorce, not when you’re bringing up Phoebe alone. Tell me I’m wrong?’

  Maggie looked pained as her gaze fell to her feet.

  ‘All that glitters is not gold,’ Helena said. ‘To me, a friend is someone who is there when it counts: when a parent dies; when you’re going through a divorce; when life isn’t shiny and bright. Not for the holidays and the high days, or when you need a place to crash to try on a family Christmas for size.’

  Joni felt like her chest was being crushed. ‘You don’t understand my life!’

  ‘Quick! Grab your guitar! Catchy chorus line.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Joni spat, the tears coming now. She turned away. Her mind raced, a flood of adrenalin washing away the tired muscles and exhaustion. She tipped forward into a run, ignoring Liz’s shouts.

  The wind was against her face. Into it she let out a huge explosion of noise, a scream of frustration, of hurt, of she-didn’t-know-what! Just knew she wanted to be anywhere but this mountain trail.

  She felt like her skin had been flayed right off. She wanted the cocaine. Wanted to disappear from herself.

  ‘Just stop!’ Liz yelled.

  Joni turned back.

  ‘What is it?’ Maggie asked.

  Liz’s face was pinched. She was pointing towards the beach. ‘Look! Someone’s down there.’

  46

  LIZ

  Below on the beach, Liz could just make out the shape of a person.

  ‘Who is that?’ Maggie whispered.

  Liz squinted, trying to squeeze her vision into something sharper – but all she could make out was a figure moving across an otherwise still scene. ‘Whoever it is, they’re heading for the cave.’

  A collective tension grew between them as they stood together, Joni and Helena’s argument fading to a background hum.

  Maggie shook her head, saying, ‘The trail onto the beach was destroyed in the landslide. How have they got down there?’

  Liz glanced towards the sea. ‘There’s no sign of a boat.’

  ‘And we’ve not crossed anyone on the mountain trail,’ Helena added.

  ‘Unless …’ Liz began, turning cold at the thought, ‘… the person was down there the whole time?’

  ‘They’re going inside!’ Maggie said, hugging her arms to her body.

  They fell silent, watching as the lone figure was swallowed by the mouth of the cave.

  Liz imagined the person taking a torch from their pocket, its beam lighting the way towards the stack of lobster pots. Would they see the spill of powder on the floor and the tumbled pot? How long would it take them to notice that one of the packages was missing?

  ‘They’re going to find out, aren’t they?’ Maggie said, voice panicked. ‘They’ll know someone took their cocaine.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Joni said quietly, tone dejected. Her hands had dropped to her sides, her head was lowered. ‘I’ve messed up. I shouldn’t have taken it. I’m so sorry.’

  No one said anything.

  All eyes were on the cave.

  ‘Who do you think is down there?’ Maggie asked, her voice lowered.

  ‘Could be anyone,’ Liz said, pulling at the collar of her jacket. Whoever it was, Liz knew she didn’t want to come face to face with them.

  She glanced at the bag of cocaine still slumped on the rock in front of them. ‘What do we do with this?’

  ‘Chuck it over the mountainside!’ Maggie said.

  ‘No!’ Joni said, stepping forward. ‘If someone does come looking for it – better that we return it.’ She picked up the cocaine and went to pocket it, but Liz stepped forward, opening her hand.

  Joni’s gaze fell on her palm. Her eyes were dull, deep shadows beneath them. Her fingers kept their grip on the cocaine. Liz wondered just how dark things had become. She’d thought Joni’s drug use was social, for a buzz, to keep up the pace – because maybe that was what she’d wanted to see. But for Joni to take the risk of stealing cocaine – to even want it in these circumstances – it worried her.

  She met Joni’s gaze, waiting for her to hand it over.

  A gust of wind wound up the mountainside, cool and sharp.

  After a beat, Joni placed the cocaine in Liz’s palm. Then she wrapped her arms tight around herself, as if she was suddenly chilled.

  Liz forced the bag into the widest pocket of her jacket, zipping it shut.

  When she turned, Helena was still squinting at the cave.

  ‘What is it?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Whoever is in that cave is going to discover some of the cocaine is missing. And then they’re going to come looking for it.’ She paused, turning to face the others. ‘We’re standing on the only trail out of Blafjell.’

  The friends looked at each other.

  Liz said, ‘We need to move.’

  THE SEARCH

  Leif scrambles up the next section of mountain. The elevation has steepened, so he needs both hands to grab onto huge boulders and pull himself up. For speed, he’s abandoned the trail, which rises more gradually up a series of switchbacks, taking the softer flank of the mountain. Leif’s route will shave off half an hour – if he doesn’t fall.

  Every moment counts, he knows, thinking of the injured woman, unmoving on the ledge. At high elevation, being exposed to the elements for this length of time isn’t good. If her injuries are serious, he may already be too late.

  As he pushes on, he can feel the slick of sweat between his T-shirt and pack. He pulls himself up over a large boulder, his sight keen, looking around, keeping alert.

  As a child, he’d often come out here with Erik. They had always been good climbers. It didn’t feel learned, it was just part of their everyday, climbing the mountains because they were there. Flat ground didn’t exist in their village. There was nowhere to play football except at the valley bottom, which was level, but dank and shaded most of the summer or covered in snow in winter. So instead, they climbed.

  It was only when Leif was an adult and he visited other places in Europe – taking in flat, square gardens and concrete and brick expanses – that he realised that he lived somewhere so beautiful.

  He knows Erik set out on the Svelle trail three days earlier. Erik didn’t tell him – just did it. Name in the logbook. Pack on his shoulders. Gone. Always flying low to the ground. Secretive. Never letting Leif in.

  Maybe I’m no different, Leif thinks.

  His gaze lifts to the mountain top, then he turns as he takes in the ridge, the second peak. He wonders where Erik is now. Recalls the description the German hikers gave. A younger man … alone. Head in his hands.

  The image makes him recall their father’s funeral – Erik walking out mid-hymn, kicking the door open with his foot. Leif had found him later, not in the burial ground, but down by the lodge lake where their father used to sit with his morning coffee watching the birds dive for insects. Erik had been slumped on the bank, head in his hands, fingers digging into his scalp. Leif had tried to talk, to tell him it would be okay, but he’d started to shout, mouthing off about tourists who had no right to be out there in the mountains, endangering the rescue teams’ lives. He was angry, hurting, full of blame, wanting to lash out.

  If Erik was on the Svelle trail, he should have been hiking out by now. They should’ve passed one another.

  Leif scans the landscape once again.

  No sign of his brother.

  47

  MAGGIE

  Maggie had never felt more exhausted. Her leg muscles spiked with the burn of lactic acid; a deep pressure was throbbing at her temples; her breath came in uneven gasps.

  Helena and Joni hadn’t spoken a word to one another. The argument hung over them all, weighting the atmosphere. Helena marched at the front; Joni lagged at the rear. Sandwiched by their animosity, Liz and Maggie walked in silence, too.

  Despite the strengthening wind, Maggie was hot beneath her jacket. She paused to unzip it, tying it around her waist. The freckled skin on her arms was flushed pink. She stretched one way and then the other, easing out her back.

  Joni drew closer, gaze on the ground, expression bleak. Wisps of dark hair had escaped her headband. The verve and spark that she’d blazed with on stage at the lodge had burned out, and she looked tired and fragile now.

  ‘You okay?’ Maggie asked.

  Joni shook her head. ‘I’m a shit person.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘Everything Helena said about me – it’s true. I wasn’t there for her when her mum died. I should have been. And you, Mags,’ she said, eyes misting, ‘she’s right. After you and Aidan ended, I didn’t check in enough. I let you down.’

  Maybe there was some truth in that. At the time, Maggie had felt abandoned – but there was no point kicking someone when they were down. ‘You were away. I understood.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t have to understand! I want to be the type of friend who you can rely on. Like Liz and Helena.’

  She was right that Liz and Helena had been brilliant. It was Liz who’d found the house she was now renting, and who’d given up a weekend to help her move in. Helena had driven down too, arriving with food to stock her cupboards and two bottles of champagne, ‘To toast your freedom!’

  ‘I could have called you, messaged, sent something for Phoebe. But I didn’t,’ Joni said. ‘There’s something wrong with me. I think about doing something nice – and then I never follow through!’

  Maggie knew that Joni lived so fully in the moment that sometimes she didn’t pause to think outside of that reality. If she were out drinking, she’d never be the one to think ahead about the early start, or the hangover that would come. Maggie suspected that when Joni was apart from them, it was like they didn’t exist. It wasn’t Joni being callous or selfish – she was simply living in another moment, and they weren’t part of it.

  ‘You three – you’re everything I have.’ Joni’s eyes were teary. ‘And I just … I keep messing up.’

  ‘We’re always going to be here. We love you.’

  ‘But I don’t deserve you. Any of you. There are things I’ve done …’ she said, looking ahead at Helena, then Liz. She shook her head, trailing off.

  ‘Joni?’

  ‘Sorry. I’m not good company. I think … I just need to be on my own for a bit.’ Without waiting for a response, she picked up her pace, leaving Maggie alone on the trail.